Damn, now I wish I never returned my Surface RT, oh well, save up for the new 2nd gen Surface RT. That will come with Tegra 4, and hopefully more RAM for better performance!
Or you could get a 32B refurb on ebay for $200 Which is what I would have done if I had bricked my Surface last night! LOL
The problem was the filesystem in the end, I guess I didn't check rufus' settings thoroughly enough and set up the USB pen as MBR instead of GPT, needed for UEFI systems like the Surface.
There's a way that I discovered to do it all from your RT machine (must be 8.0). I'll try to remember the steps... 1. Download and unzip the RT jailbreak tool. As a new poster here, I'm unable to post links, so just google "RT jailbreak tool" and it should be the first result. 2. Run RunExploit.bat. Choose 'R' from the menu. Let it finish, then press any key when it asks you to. 3. Download Win86emu and install it. Again, google "Win86emu" and it should be the first result. 4. Download Produkey and unzip it. Again, google "Produkey" and it should be the first result. 5. Bring up the charms bar, do Search, put in "Regedit" and run it. 6. In Regedit, find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion, select it and export it to a .reg file. 7. Find Win86emu on your Start screen, do a short flick up or down on it in order to bring up the options bar and choose "Open File Location"... or, on the Desktop, browse to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu\Programs\win86emu 8. Run the "x86 Registry Editor" shortcut. 9. In that registry editor, import the .reg file that you exported from Regedit in step 4. This'll import the product key values into the special x86 registry that the emulator established for itself (necessary for Produkey, which runs in the emulator environment, to read them). 8. Run the "Run x86 Program" shortcut from the previous Explorer window or tap the tile on the Start screen. 10. In the program launcher, browse to the produkey.exe that you unzipped in step 2 and press OK. 11. Write down the key listed under the Product Key column (for the "Windows" product, which should be the only entry). You can also tell the program to save it to a text file, but you'll have to copy it off of the device before you install, obviously. If the window is blank, choose Select Source and verify that "Load the product keys from your local computer" is selected.
Do mind that some drivers have never been updates since Sep/Oct 2012, because they are system drivers that provide basic functionalities, and don't need to be updated like specific ones. I remember when I had stock Windows 8 all the updates I got were for Touch Cover/UEFI binaries, everything else was still dated 2012. Of course that's not to say WZOR got everything perfect, I do believe however that Windows Update is not dumb enough to stick with old drivers when more recent ones are available. As far as I can tell, every driver that ever got updated under Windows 8 is at its most recent version here in 8.1 RTM. What matters is that everything runs fine, and I am not experiencing the bugs that afflicted older drivers, like the dreaded sound bug (sound stuttered at low volumes).
I'm staring t sweat a bit. I got up to the point where it says "Getting files ready for installation." It seems stuck @ 0%. Copying Windows files finished almost immediately. Did I mess up?
This is normal. Wait for like 20 minutes, it will continue by itself. This is because nearly all of the custom drivers added are boot-critical and are copied over at the very start of the WIM deployment stage. There is no description for this stage, so it is 0% when actually it is the stage before Copying Windows files. The Installing drivers stage is for non boot-critical drivers that are being added post deployment.
Hello, I used the generic ARM product key - and installed an upgrade. It worked except that it would not take my exported key for activation. It claims that the key is blocked. I did a repair and tried again - same issue. I did another install saving nothing - same issue. Can someone point me in the right direction. The product key that extracted looks good to my eye - it's the correct number of digits, etc. I'm stuck and not sure what to do - would appreciate any assistance. Thanks, K
Awesome, got it done. Running great. The lack of the clicking sound when using the touch cover threw me off a bit, but all is good.
Thanks for the help. I saved the two registry files - but I have no way to run PIDGEN from my RT device and I don't have access to another machine at home. Can I run PiDGEN against the exported Reg files to get the correct key? I used the Magic software mentioned earlier and that's how I ended up with the key from the registry file. K
read your pm. I am wondering if phone activation works. Since your key must be legit if you used Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder I'd try this next if I were you. You run slui 4 from a command prompt to initiate phone activation.
You can try following the instructions that I posted above, in post #72. Just skip steps 3 & 4, since you already have your reg file(s). Those instructions will give you your key again. Perhaps you did something wrong the first time and either got the wrong key or wrote it down incorrectly. Try activating with the key that Produkey (see my instructions) gives you.
This is the exact process that I did...and the same registry key names as well. WEIRD. I also used "DISM GUI" to add the drivers, it made it a bit less messy on my end, however I cannot say that it would be the safest solution to doing it.
Help!!! Hi I seem to not be able to activate windows 8.1 rt I exported my "DefaultProductKey" from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DefaultProductKey by mistake I did not export the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DefaultProductKey2 renamed the DefaultProductKey to DefaultProductKeyrt and imported it to a win 8 machine used winTK to Decrypt the key however when I try to use the key windows tells me that this key is invalid.. somehow I think it was the DefaultProductKey2 that was the correct key now I try to restore the original windows 8 that I saved and it tells me that I am missing some files can anyone help me with this??? btw it is a surface rt
It seems that all that you need is DigitalProductId. I just tested it. Do this: take your unmodified .reg file and, instead of renaming DigitalProductId to DigitalProductIdRT (I assume that that's what you meant, not DefaultProductKey), simply rename CurrentVersion to CurrentVersion2. While you still have it open, copy the key name ("HKEY_LOCAL... CurrentVersion2"... don't include the brackets) to the clipboard. Save and import the .reg file. Then, in WinTK, paste that key from your clipboard into the field and click on Decrypt. That ought to be your key. After you write it down, you can delete the CurrentVersion2 key from your registry. I think that what you may've been doing before is trying to activate RT with your desktop/laptop key, since WinTK looks for the DigitalProductId value (which, in CurrentVersion, is your desktop/laptop key) and doesn't know or care that you have a DigitalProductIdRT value there, too. By creating the value as DigitalProductId under CurrentVersion2, however, WinTK can find what you want it to find.